Picnic

“Jeff, we would have plenty of time to take him to another cemetery and get back,” Alice argued as they walked through the moon light speckled forest towards the valley to meet Iritzebah.

“Alice, I’ve already explained; I didn’t want to risk it tonight.  We can do it tomorrow night if he still wants to go,” Jeff answered a bit exasperated.  

“Yeah, I’d be thrilled to get out of here,” Michael answered from the back of the group as they emerged into the clearing in the valley under the moonlit sky.  They stared at the shadow all tied up nice and neat to a stake with iron chains.

“Why can’t I see him?  Can any of you?”  Claudia whispered.

“Not now, but I could underground,” Jeff whispered back.  

They circled cautiously but kept their distance from the vampire, which unbeknownst to them, glared suspiciously at them.  Other ghouls stayed back in the woods waiting for Iritzebah to appear and explain.

Iritzebah stood in the shadows at the top of the hill between the valley and the town of Bitter Weep a small mining town that had showed so much promise in the 1800’s until the collapse of the silver market.  She watched as the enchantment she cast over the town to turn in early slowly took effect and the lights in the houses gradually turned off one by one.  When the last one went dark, she turned back to the scene below her on the other side of the hill and stepped forward so the light cast by the moon illuminated her.  

The ghouls finally took notice and looked up at her.  The vampire noticed the change and looked up with them.  At first he was unable to discern if the individual that stood at the top of the hill was male or female.  The long dirt clotted hair mostly shadowed her face except for the bright pyrite specks where her eyes shone in black hollows and her garb of ill fitting dirty worn jeans, a loose gray tee shirt and a man’s baggy tweed suit coat rolled up at the wrists further camouflaged her gender. The glow of the moon seemed drawn to the fatal raw bruised rope burn that encircled her neck.  The vampire felt a mild discomfort stir in his bowels at the sight of his captor and the ugly menace that rolled down the hill from her.

Iritzebah waited until a scud of cloud obscured the moon and the vampire became brilliantly clear under the darkness.  The ghouls gasped lightly at the sudden appearance of the handsome young man in a sharply tailored suit.  

“Bastard child of a disillusioned god,” she roared, “you’ve attempted to defile my cemetery with your vile presence.  We don’t serve you and we owe you no allegiance.  Your presence here is an insult to us all!”

The ghouls stared frozen in fear between her and the vampire.  

“Release me!  I don’t want the allegiance of filthy anarchist bone crunchers!” He yelled back.  

“We are the dead.  We live in a state of chaos with allegiance to no one but our Benefactor.  We are the chosen children of death, as we consume his offerings and complete the cycle of flesh to dust.  You soon will be our return offering to our Benefactor.  Night Howlers will descend and haul you away by your collar bones into the black cold where they will tear out your eyes with their twisted and broken incisors.  Let their feces run down into your torn and bleeding eye sockets. You will be dumped at the gates of a dead heaven!”

The ghouls staggered back at this proclamation and shuddered at the hot anger that poured out of her.  No one had heard Iritzebah curse someone with such venom.  Dead leaves and branches cracked as a few of the ghouls fled into the trees.  The anger in her voice revealed her utter loathing and hatred of the bound vampire.  

“You ridiculous old hag.  By doing this you will bring down the wrath of all the vampires!  Now release me!”

“You poor little fledgling,” she sneered.  “No one will come looking for you or avenge your destruction.  No one will search for a vampire that beds down in ghoul territory.  You’re lost.”  

“They will come,” he replied although with less conviction than earlier.  “They will hold you responsible and in the end will destroy you and the rest of your cannibalistic berserker tribe!”

Iritzebah chuckled and waved at the ghouls, “Feed!” she ordered then turned on her heel and disappeared in the woods.  The ghouls glanced at each other then approached the vampire tentatively.

“Release me and I’ll spare each of you!”  He swung his head as far around the stake as he could to try to engage the ghouls.  

“Feed?”  Alice asked uncertainly.

“I guess Floyd wasn’t kidding,” Jeff said.

“He’s moving,” Claudia replied with a grimace of disgust.

“He might be moving, but he is dead,” Michael ripped off an ear and popped it into his mouth.  The vampire shrieked in pain.  Michael’s eyes lit up as he swallowed the morsel.  “Oh my god, this is delicious!  It reminds me of my mom’s chicken gizzards; chewy but crunchy.”

Jeff tore loose an arm as the vampire howled in agony.

“Slow cooked pork roast.”  Jeff’s eyes rolled in his head and saliva dripped down his chin as he chewed.

The gluttony of the other two spurred Claudia forward.  She rammed her fist into his guts and fished around.

“His heart?”  Alice asked.  

“No, I’m looking for…” Claudia continued to fish while the vampire screamed.  

“Italian bread, with olive oil and truffles,” Michael announced through a mouthful of flesh.

“…ah, this!” Claudia pulled out her arm with his liver in hand.  

“Liver?”  Alice looked on in loathing while Claudia chewed the dripping organ.  

“I love a fresh liver,” she closed her eyes in ecstasy.  “My grandma made the best liver and onions and this tastes just like it.”

Alice reluctantly reached forward and twisted off the lower leg and bit into it while Jeff pulled the screaming writhing vampire free of the chains and tore off a slab of back muscle.  She chewed hesitantly until her eyes lit up and took bigger bites gorging on the flesh.  

“Prime rib!” she exulted as a trickle of blood dripped down her chin.  Claudia leaned over and licked it off.  

“That’s delicious,” Claudia said as she licked her lips.

“I hope you don’t mean me.”  Alice grimaced.

“No, unembalmed blood,” Claudia said with a snort then glanced over and noticed Samuel.  “Hey, Sam, come join us.”  

“He’s yelling,” Sam replied and shook his head ‘no’.

Michael ripped off the vampire’s jaw and left him with a gaping hole under his nose and into his throat.  “Now he’s not.”  Michael grasped the jaw muscle between his teeth and peeled it cleanly off and sucked it down with a wet slurping sound.

“No thanks, I don’t like it when my food moves.”  Sam continued to stand off to the side and watch the others devour the vampire rapaciously.  

Finally only the head, which blinked with dazed eyes, remained in front of the four of them and they stared at it.

“Should we save something for Iritzebah?”  Michael asked.  

“Hell no,” Claudia said and cracked open the skull like a coconut and scooped brain out with her finger and sucked it off. “Camembert,” she moaned.  Jeff reached in and took a scoop.

“Brie,” he pronounced while he rolled it around his mouth and sucked the last vestiges off his finger.

Claudia held the skull out to Michael who shook his head ‘no’.

“I don’t like cheese.”  He cracked open a stray femur and sucked out the marrow.

Claudia began to offer it to Alice who pulled back in disgust.  “Oh, that’s right you don’t like the brain.”

“Wait.”  Alice stopped her, “I’ll take the eyes.”  She put her lips up to one and a loud wet popping noise soon followed as she sucked it out of the socket.  She pushed each of them into her cheeks so she could eat them leisurely.  

“You look like a squirrel!”  Michael laughed.  

Alice smiled as slid one into her mouth and burst it between her molars.  The warm gelatinous goo squirted through her mouth.  “Mmm, reminds me of cherry cordials,” she said around the other eye still in her cheek.  

After they finished they followed Iritzebah’s scent to the far side of the cemetery where they found her sitting back against one of the larger and more ornate crypts for a dead mining magnate whose family died out with the money.  They approached carefully and nonchalantly and sat down in a loose circle near her.  

“That was interesting,” Claudia finally said to break the silence.  

“Glad you liked it,” Iritzebah replied and popped a phalange into her mouth to worry.

“Liked it?  He was delicious!” Jeff sighed.  “I hope his buddies do come looking for him.”

 “Don’t get too excited.  Vampires used to disappear around here whenever they tried to pass through.”

The ghouls all looked at her in bafflement.

“What, you hunt vampires to pass the time of day?”  Jeff inquired.

“Not to pass the time of day, no.”

“Could you elaborate?”  Claudia asked a bit impatiently.

“The tradition didn’t come out to this continent, but vampires used ghouls as day moving slaves,” Iritzebah explained.

“What? Oh my god, Iritzebah, one of these things enslaved you?”  Claudia unthinkingly reached out to Iritzebah who threw her a warning glance and Claudia quickly withdrew her hand.

“No, it wasn’t me, but my brother, and he wasn’t a ghoul.  When there aren’t any ghouls around, they’ll make a mortal into something like a ghoul.  That’s what happened to him,” she recounted bitterly.

“One of those things made your brother into a zombie?”  Jeff asked horrified.

“Not quite a zombie, not a ghoul.  Something else.  There’s really no name for the state they would put their victims in.”

“Well, why not make all these day slaves they wanted?  Why bother with ghouls at all?”  Sam asked.  

“Ghouls would eat the vampire’s victims.  The vampires got day moving slaves, and the ghouls got meals.  The vampires tried to sell it as a win win.  Then a ghoul discovered how delicious vampire meat was and that was the end of using ghouls.”

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad deal,” Sam mused.  

The others all turned and looked at him with disbelief except for Iritzebah, who wore an expression of intense disdain.

“Samuel, we are not here to help vampires murder people.  We’re here to help return the dead to dust.”

“We are?”  Michael asked.  

“We, us, ghouls,” she clarified, “generally occur after a mass death event.  Nature doesn’t like piles of dead humans around.  Perhaps it’s due to our special relationship with the man upstairs.”  She nodded her head upward.  “Our bodies are more prone to possession.”

“Who told you this?”  Alice asked.

“Our village priest.”  Iritzebah took in the confused expressions around her and explained further.  “When I was a child, my mother took us to a battles field outside of our village after the fighting had ended to collect our dead and filch weapons off the other fallen soldiers.  We saw the dead roaming among the bodies. She explained what was wandering in the fields but not why so she asked the priest to explain it.”

“I thought my childhood was bad,” Alice commented with a shiver.  “They had battles like that around here?”

“This was back in England.”

“How do you explain me?”  Claudia butted in and ignored Alice look of irritation who was about to ask another question.  “I was killed by an ex boyfriend.  Maybe he wanted to commit mass murder but he stopped with me.”

“I don’t know,” Iritzebah replied.  “It’s what my mother was told and I haven’t come across anything to contradict it.”

“How did you die?”  Alice asked and immediately regretted her question when Iritzebah threw a look of unadulterated anger at her and moved like she was going to get up before she gave a deep sigh and settled down.

“I thought it was pretty obvious I was hanged.”  She tipped her head back and exposed the deep bruised rope burn around her neck.  “It happened when I was staying with a group of Utes up in the mountains.  The men were out hunting so it was only the women, children and older people.  A group of ex Union soldiers showed up at their camp looking for a group of ‘Indians’ who had slaughtered some settlers.  I tried to speak up and tell them that this tribe had been up here for the last month.  That got me tied up and strung up to a tree standing on my toes while they murdered the elderly and children then took turns with the women before killing them.  Afterwards, they kicked the log out from under my feet.”  

Everyone sat quietly for a minute until Jeff could no longer take the awkward tension in the air.

“Well, we almost have a fifty fifty split.  Claudia and I were alone when we died.  Alice, Iritzebah, and Michael were larger scale.  What about you Samuel?  How was it you died?”

“Road repair crew accident.  I was holding one of the signs telling drivers to go slow when some dumb ass yelling at me to get a real job lost control of his car and hit me.”

Everyone turned back to Iritzebah for further explanation and she shook her head.

“Figure it out yourselves.  Maybe no one was there to greet you when you died so you went back into your bodies rather than wander around as ghosts.”  Iritzebah got up and brushed the dust off her legs.

“Iritzebah.” Alice grabbed the cuff of her jeans. Iritzebah gave her a warning look and Alice withdrew her hand.  “What happened to your brother?”

“I shot him through the chest with an arrow,” Iritzebah replied curtly and walked away.

They all sat there dumbfounded as she disappeared into the darkness. No one spoke for quite some time.  

“Do any of you remember what happened right after you died?”  Claudia asked tentatively.

“No, and I don’t want to,” Sam replied to nods from the others.

“You don’t remember if you were outside your body and looking down at it or wandering around?” she asked.

“I don’t think anyone wants to remember,” Michael said.  “You’re suggesting we chose this,” he said pointing to his body.

“Do you remember?” Alice asked her.

Claudia shook her head ‘no’.  

“Hey, we still have the car,” Jeff said reminded everyone.  “We were supposed to get rid of it.  Anyone want to go for a drive?”

“That’s right,” Michael said getting up and brushing off his jeans.  

“Oh yeah, come on Alice!”  Claudia pulled Alice to her feet.

 “Yeah, we can finally take him back to Colorado Springs,” Alice said with a toss of her head towards Michael.  “Sam?”

“Sure.”

“I was thinking instead of going to Colorado Springs that we go up to Denver,” Jeff suggested casually as they walked towards the car hidden in a copse of trees.

“Seriously Jeff?” Alice asked exasperated.  “Am I going to have to call him a cab to get him out of here?”

“Hear me out.  I was thinking if you’re all interested in finding a vampire, we might have better luck up in Denver.  If it doesn’t work out, we can always come back this way and I can drop him off in Colorado Springs.”

“Maybe we should go to Colorado Springs first and see if we can find a vampire there and also drop him off,” Alice argued.

“Colorado Springs is closer,” Claudia offered.

“It’s boring,” Sam commented from behind.

“I’d like to see Denver.  I haven’t been up there in long time,” Michael said firmly.

 “Slow down kids,” said a voice in the woods.  Agatha, a slightly overweight older woman who died when her husband threw a kettle of boiling water on her chest and left her on the kitchen floor to die from the resulting heart attack, stepped out of the darkness.  Floyd hovered in the background and nodded his gray bearded chin in agreement.  “Don’t bring a plague of vampires into our town just because you’re bored and are looking for something to do.”

“I’m with Agatha here,” Floyd spoke up.  “Some of us still have family alive in town.  Don’t stir up problems that might hurt the living.”  He nodded towards Agatha who had a son in town along with a young granddaughter. Agatha and Floyd then sank back into the darkness of the forest that surrounded the cemetery.  The thought of a horde of vampires sweeping through and decimating the town gave them pause but Jeff quickly shook it off.

“Hey, there’s no saying we’ll find any.  I mean, how long have we all been here and this is the first vampire we’ve ever seen?  It doesn’t seem like they’re just wandering around.”  He looked around at the uncertain faces.  “Well, I still need to get rid of the car.  See you all later.”

Michael glanced at the others then with a shrug followed Jeff. The other three looked at each other sheepishly and followed Michael.

Agatha stood in the woods with Floyd and watched the group leave then turned to Floyd.

“Iritzebah should have sent him packing when he first crawled into our cemetery.”

“Let’s hope they don’t come back,” Floyd muttered.

 “Well, I’m not waiting around to find out.  I’m leaving,” Agatha announced.

“What?”  Floyd spun around to her.  “And leave your granddaughter?”  

“I’m just going to make myself scarce until this blows over.  I’m not going to be a casualty of Jeff’s antics.” Agatha turned and headed into the woods.

Floyd shook his head.  “Hey,” he called out to her, “do you know if your granddaughter found that old bucket and coffee pot I left out for her?”

Agatha grinned.  “Yeah, she did and she loved it.  Couldn’t figure out how she hadn’t seen them before since she hikes that trail a lot.  But she ran them home to her daddy and he put them up in his antique shop to sell.  Guess some city tourist saw them and snatched them right up.  Thanks for doing that.”  

“No trouble, they’ll just rust down in the mines otherwise.”  Floyd waved his hand to brush off the gratitude.  “Glad someone is getting some sort of use out of ‘em.”  

# # #

Claudia and Jeff piled into the front with Jeff driving the older model Camry.  Alice grumbled that she got stuck the back with Sam and Michael.  

“You have the shorter legs,” Michael told her as he reached over to pat her knee and she smacked his hand away.

“Michael, stop bothering her,” Claudia hollered, “you’re old enough to be her father!”

“Hey, she’s cute and we’re well past the point of worrying about age now,” he said.

“That’s just gross,” Alice muttered and turned further away.

“What?” Michael demanded.

“Sex between two dead bodies,” Alice yelled into Michael’s face.  “Now back off!”

“She’s got a point,” Claudia said sitting forward again.  “Never mind how painful it would be,” she continued then turned around again.  “I mean, maybe you guys haven’t noticed but when a woman is dry, it catches and pulls and as a ghoul now, I’m as dry as the Sahara.”

“Use spit,” Michael said.

“Yeah?  When did you last have any spit in your mouth?” Claudia countered.

“Ok, enough, we got it.  Sex between ghouls is not something I want to dwell on,” Jeff said squeamishly.  

“Besides, it would probably be like rubbing two sticks together and both ghouls would spontaneously combust.”  Claudia laughed at her own joked despite the uncomfortable expressions of the others around her.  

“Alice, here sit on the other side of me.”  Sam offered and she crawled over his lap so Sam was in the middle seat between them.

“You know, maybe I should drive,” Claudia suggested as Jeff guided them out of the access road behind the cemetery and onto the county road that led to the highway.

“Why?” Jeff asked surprised.

“The last time you drove anywhere you hit a deer,” she replied with a smirk.

“Funny.  And it was an elk, not a deer.”

“What were you doing driving through the mountains at night on a motorcycle?”  Alice asked.

“I was trying to walk in Jack Kerouac’s footsteps.  He’s a writer and I wanted to be a writer,” he replied wistfully.

“Did you ever have anything published?” Michael asked.

“No.”

“Do you still write?” Sam asked and everyone turned to look at him like he was nuts.  “Why shouldn’t he?” he said to the looks he got from the others.

“No, I don’t,” he replied and took the exit towards Denver to Alice’s grumbled discontent.  “Besides, it’s not like I could really get published now.”  He twisted the rearview mirror and looked at himself and for the first time saw the intense damage to his face.

“Watch it!” Alice screamed as a truck blew past them with its horn blaring.

Jeff yanked the wheel and pulled them back into their lane and shakily fixed the rear view mirror.  “Sorry,” he muttered to everyone.

“See what I was saying?” Claudia joked nervously.  “I wonder what would have happened to us if we had gotten hit.”

“We would have gotten pulverized,” Sam replied.

“No, I mean, like if our bodies were destroyed.  Would we be ghosts now like Iritzebah said?”

“Who knows?  In the sermons I heard as a kid someone was always at the gates to greet you,” Michael commented.

“Maybe there’s a staffing shortage up there with all the people going to hell.  The gates are only staffed Monday to Friday from nine to one,” Jeff kidded.

“And it’s closed on Christmas!” Alice chortled.

“Hm, something to think about,” Claudia said to herself while the others laughed at Alice’s crack.

An hour of so passed where everyone drifted in their own thoughts.

“Not much to look at out here, is there?” Alice commented.  “Why do they build ugly buildings along a highway?  You’d think they’d want to make it more interesting to keep people from falling asleep.”

“We’re getting closer to Denver so things should get a little more interesting,” Jeff replied.

 “How many vampires do you guys think we’ll find up there?” Sam asked.  

“I don’t know.”  Jeff shrugged.  “We might not find any.”

“Do’ya think they’ll be hostile to us?” Sam asked.

“Sam, we’ll just watch them and see what they’re like before we approach them.  We won’t be hasty about it and put ourselves in danger,” Jeff said.

“Or are you asking because you’re still thinking of working with them?” Alice asked.

“Well, yeah, why not?  I mean, it’s a free meal and it’s fresh.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Michael said.

“Just don’t bite the hand that feeds you!” Claudia added cackling and got everyone else laughing.  

 “But fresh meat,” Samuel pondered out loud when the laughing died down.  Does an unembalmed person would taste as good as a vampire?  Do’ya think it’s the embalming that takes the taste out?”

“Maybe it’s all the blood it has consumed.  Sort of like marinating,” Jeff said and moved to the right lane as they got into Denver.  “Start looking around for someplace good for me to pull off.  It’s bigger than when I was last here so any suggestions are good at this point.”  

“Hm, marinating, makes me think of ribs.”  Michael stared off.  “I can’t remember the last time I had a good rack of ribs.”

“Let’s get closer to downtown, I want to see a skyscraper,” Claudia suggested. “And stop talking about food.”

Soon the lighted towers of downtown Denver appeared ahead and they all stared.  Jeff didn’t wait to be asked and took the Speer exit that took them into downtown Denver so they could all see it up close.  

“Wow, nothing like I really remember it,” Jeff said.

“Look at all these building,” Alice whispered.  “Are there really enough people to fill them?”

“They’re mostly steel and glass,” Claudia noted. “Nothing really old here at all.”

“We need to go towards 17th and Colfax area for the old buildings,” Jeff said as he turned east and headed towards those neighborhoods.  As the towers disappeared behind them, the mood of the car softened.

“Yeah, I like this better,” Michael commented.  “Not so claustrophobic.”  The others nodded to themselves.  
        “Maybe we should find someplace to camp out?” Claudia offered as they cruised past stately homes built by an older era of wealth.  

“Good idea, everyone, but we need to do it fast because we’re running low on gas.  Get me some directions,” Jeff told them and the windows all rolled down.

“I can take care of the gas for you.  Go to one of the parking lots and park in a shadowy area.”

Jeff followed his directions and Sam hopped out over Alice when they parked.

“I’ll be right back, I need a tube.”  Sam disappeared into the night.

“Oh yeah to siphon gas.  Good idea. Well, everyone might as well get out and stretch.  And check the cars nearby for a full tank,” Jeff said as he got out of the car and the rest followed him.  When Sam returned with the hose, Alice waved them over to a lone car and Sam quickly siphoned the gas into their car.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just steal that car instead of taking the gas?” Claudia asked.

“I can hotwire one if we need to, but I don’t want to be driving around in a stolen car,” Sam replied with a wink to her.

“A bad boy with the misspent youth?” Claudia said huskily.

“There were–” Sam started to say.

“Keep going east,” Alice interrupted abruptly with a deep sniff.

“I think I smell a cemetery,” Michael told Jeff.

Claudia gave Sam a wink and turned back in her seat.

“I smell it too,” Jeff commented but his nose wrinkled. “It’s not quite right, is it?”

“Yeah, not quite right,” Claudia agreed while Jeff turned onto the residential street.  “It’s a cemetery all right though and it’s in a neighborhood so the car won’t stick out.”  Jeff drove down the street lined with single level ranch style homes with tiny garages from the early fifties.  

“This is the kind of house I grew up in,” Jeff commented.  “But I never understood how we could have such a tiny garage when the cars back then were so bulky but somehow my Dad always got the car pulled in and there was enough room for us all to get out.”  He parked near another car on the street and they all piled out and looked at the cemetery across the street.

“Not quite the view I would want from my living room,” Alice observed.  

“At least the neighbors are quiet,” Claudia whispered and they all snorted their laughter.

“That’s wicked,” Alice sputtered.  

 “What about the smell?” Michael said.

“Yeah, there’s something off about this place,” Jeff agreed with a sniff and he rubbed his nose.

 “Almost like meat gone bad,” Alice commented.

“It’s not like we have many options,” Claudia said with a jerk of her head towards the pinking horizon.

“Claudia’s right, we need to get underground,” Samuel said with a nervous glance at the houses across the street.  “There’s got to be more cemeteries we can look for tomorrow.”

They hopped over the fence and burrowed into the soil.

“Okay, this is weird,” Jeff said looking around.

“You got that right,” Claudia agreed.

“Who dug these tunnels if no one is here?” Michael asked.

“Are you sure it’s not too late to go somewhere else?” Alice asked.

“Yeah, it’s too late.  Come on, we’ll check it out,” Jeff replied.

“Let’s stick close together, just in case,” Sam said.  

“Hello?” Michael called out.

“Shut up!”  Alice punched his arm.  “You don’t know what’s out there.”

“Shit, calm down.  How will we find out if we don’t introduce ourselves?” he demanded.

“Michael, she’s right,” Claudia said harshly.  “This isn’t your store where you’re greeting customers.  We’re the strangers here.”

“Everyone just be quiet,” Jeff whispered to all them over his shoulder. “Sam, take the rear. Let’s check this place out.”

They crept quietly down the deserted tunnel and peered into the first broken open vault and it was empty.

“Old,” Claudia whispered to others who nodded their understanding.

As they approached an adjacent tunnel, the odor grew slightly more intense.  Jeff stopped and looked back to the others.

“Should we check it?” he asked them.

“Yeah, I don’t want any nasty surprises,” Sam replied from the back.  The others nodded a bit hesitantly.  

Jeff took a breath, and then stepped into the tunnel with the others behind him.  As they moved deeper into it, the stink leveled out and they realized it was the newer end of the cemetery with more recently interred bodies.  The tunnels they did find contained fewer excavated vaults which was odd.  It seemed the prior ghouls explored the area but didn’t eat many of the occupants. They moved on from that end of the cemetery to explore the older sections which for the most part contained empty vaults with the few exceptions being those of the children.

Finally, they came to tunnels that all skirted the large above ground mausoleum.

“Well, what do you say we dig ourselves a little enclave here and then grab something to eat and come back here,” Jeff asked as he slapped the wall of the tunnel.

“This seems good.  Doesn’t stink much over here,” Michael agreed with the others and the five of them quickly dug out a space big enough to stretch out and stand in then returned with their meals.  

Sam tore a mouthful of meat off the leg of his meal and chewed slowly with the others who also sat quietly gnawing on their meals.  

“You guys, does the texture taste wrong to you?” he asked.

“It is a little different,” Michael agreed.

“Maybe they use different embalming fluid here,” Claudia said.

“These bodies are probably just stale,” Alice suggested.  “We always get fresh burials.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Sam agreed and continued to chew.

 “What do you think caused the other ghouls to leave?” Alice asked while she chewed.

“The smell?” Claudia suggested.

“Maybe the vampires took them prisoner,” Michael suggested with a deep ominous chuckle that caused everyone to stop and stare at him.  

“Not funny Michael,” Jeff finally said.  

“There’s no sign of a struggle so the vampires didn’t come down here,” Claudia countered.

“I think it’s the smell,” Sam said.  “The newer burials are barely touched and those are the ones that smell the most.”

 “And they left in groups.  The scents fade off in blocks,” Alice noted with a sniff.  “If there were vampires coming in and doing raids don’t you think everyone would have left after the first raid?”  Alice turned to Claudia.

“I’d take off,” Claudia agreed.

“Well, they might have left on their own, but just in case vampires are the cause, let’s not hang around here too much at night,” Jeff suggested.  “At least until we know more.”